The term "High End" needs to die. Long live Hi-Fidelity!

Amen, brother! Harry Pearson introduced the term into hi-fi criticism, and it just reeks of elitism and snobbishness. If there were a dictionary of hi-fi terms, there would be a picture of Jonathan Scull next to the term. ;-)

Robert Harley in his book The Complete Guide to High-End Audio devoted the whole of Chapter One to "What is High-End Audio?" in which he makes it clear its about a passion for music and that it refers to performance not price.

Its not a new book. The copyright on the one I'm holding is 1994. Harley didn't invent the term, either.  It was around long before he came along. It had nothing to do with money then. It has nothing to do with money now. 

If you think it does, sorry to say, but you have been misled.

Don't compound the error by misleading others. 

Sorry millercarbon, I agree with erik and bdp24. I know that high end has been around for a long time, but high fidelity is a more accurate description of the hobby, and high end can easily be construed as snobbish, but even if it isn't, it is much less descriptive than high fidelity. And by the way, the term high fidelity came first anyway.

J. Gordon Holt himself found the term objectionable, preferring to use High Performance. What I did not yet know when I saw the term in the early issues of The Absolute Sound, was that the term was already in use in other types of consumer goods---furniture, clothing, kitchen appliances, etc. It's use implied high prices, that's literally what the term meant. 

It's use implied high prices, that's literally what the term meant.

@bdp24

Exactly.